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Oxford.”
    “Well done!” Rafe told me, with a wink.
    “Cheers, very kind of you to say so,” Montgomery thanked
him, placing a hairy hand on Rafe’s tidy square shoulder.
    “Your turn to read one, Dee,” prompted Dawn.
    My hand ventured into the hat. I pulled out a sliver of
paper. Oh for hippy’s sake! “‘I’m a perfect size ten’,” I read out.
    “It’s you!” laughed Rafe.
    “You picked out your own fact!” laughed Montgomery.
    No, I bloody well didn’t. Who, in their right mind,
would use their dress size in a getting-to-know-you game? Well, there was only
one person it could be. I looked across at Annabel, who was looking at me and seething
— a tower of rage in Topshop heels. It wasn’t my fault that people thought it
was me! I wasn’t a size ten anyway, I was an eight, but I thought it untactful
to say so.
    “It wasn’t me,” I said, sheepishly.
    “It was me!” screeched Annabel.
    “Really? Are those hips a ten?” asked vast Dawn.
    The poor girl had gallons of steam shooting out of her neat
little ears. Unfortunately, when she pouted she looked even more like a sex
doll. I hoped the steam wouldn’t melt her face.
    Desperate to move things forward, I grabbed another sliver
of paper. When I opened it, I had a cardiac arrest moment. It was like somebody
reaching in there and yanking out the power cord.
    “Hey! You’ve already had your turn!” squealed Annabel.
    “She’s right, sweetheart,” said Rafe, winking at me.
    “Put it back in!” demanded Dawn.
    I couldn’t put it back in, not after what I’d seen — not
after those words ...
    “Come on, Dee! Stop hogging the limelight,” laughed
Montgomery.
    “What’s the matter?” asked Dawn, suddenly switching to
maternal mode. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
    “What’s on the paper?” asked Rafe, looking concerned.
    “It says ... It says ‘I die tomorrow’.”
    Everybody fell silent. Then, after a few moments, Rafe
started laughing. “Good one, Dee! What does it really say?”
    “‘I die tomorrow’, look!” I held up the paper.
    Rafe grabbed it from my hands. He studied it for a few
moments. “Who wrote this then? Very funny, but come on, own up!”
    I didn’t find it funny, not here, not now, certainly not
after my run-in with a seagull.
    “It is not my handwriting,” drawled Danger.
    “I was using a pink pen,” Annabel explained.
    “Who was using a black felt-tip?” demanded Rafe.
    We all held up our pens: blue ballpen, pink gelpen, blue
rollerball, blue fountain, black ballpen, green ballpen. No black felt-tips.
    “But who else could have written it?” asked Rafe. “We’re the
only ones here.”
    “Are you sure the hat was empty when you lent it to us?”
asked Dawn.
    “Of course it was empty! I was wearing it.” Who goes around
with a trilby on their head, containing a folded note prophesying death?
    “I would not worry, Dee,” said Danger, without a touch of
warmth. “The note could be meant for any one of us.”

Chapter 3
    Dinner was an interesting affair. Dawn poured seven
different varieties of microwavable curries into a large pan and let them boil
into a thick stodge. It looked like dog food. She looked weird behind a stove —
even clumsier than usual. An elastic band collected her hair together on the
top of her head so that a fountain of frizz rained down over the lower, whiter
layers. She wore a flowery orange apron, which still had its Laura Ashley label
on it.
    “My children love this dish!” she gushed.
    I looked at the nasty chunks of flesh stewing in
miscellaneous juices and wondered if Dawn had a thyroid problem. Otherwise, how
could somebody who cooked such unappetising food become so enormous?
    “I’ve left a little ‘sturry’ for you,” I heard her tell the
kitchen doorway. “That’s my little word for stewed curry.”
    I looked around. Biff stood, leaning against the doorframe,
looking like a model for pale denim. I was beginning to find his sex